TBAY: MATCHINGARMCHAIR: the Debate Rages On (WAS: Yel...

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 39044

Eileen wakes up in the new MATCHINGARMCHAIR raft. From shore, she can 
hear screams wafting across the water. Well, that's how life is in 
TBAY. She thinks no more about it, and resolves to go to sleep. 
However, suddenly she nearly falls out of the raft. Is that Stephen 
Spielberg on shore filming the events?

"Avery, quick, we need to paddle to shore! To get autographs!"

Being a sycophant who couldn't pass up a celebrity's autograph 
either, Avery quickly concurs, and the raft whizzes towards shore. It 
passes the derelict and abandoned Fourth Man hovercraft. Avery's eyes 
fill up with tears, on seeing all that is left to remind him of his 
destroyed ancestral home with the gloomy Yew trees and the Tudor left 
wing. 

"Don't worry, Ave, we'll fix it up later. I'm not abandoning Fourth 
Man until J.K. Rowling drags me off it, kicking and screaming."

But what is this? Stephen Spielberg is gone, instead a very familiar 
face looms into view.

"You'll be wanting my autograph," the man states confidently. He is 
carrying a director's chair with the initials G.L. on the back. 

"Gilderoy Lockhart?" asks Eileen.

"No, no. I'm watching Steven's filming, and I must say, I have some 
ideas to spruce up the script. That confrontation between Elkins and 
Cindy is amazing, but we really need a comic side-character to 
provide running commentary on it in an incomprehensible accent."

"Sorry, my accent's comprehensible," said Eileen, "And Avery doesn't 
talk."

"Doesn't talk?" The man's face lights up in interest. "Mute sidekicks 
work as well, you know. Can he beep?"

"Sorry," says Eileen, shaking her head. "Have you seen Cindy around?"

"No," says the man. "Is there anything I could help you with? Any 
plot problems, dialogue problems?"

"Well, I actually think that I've fixed up a plot problem with 
MATCHINGARMCHAIR."

"The MATCHINGARMCHAIR Strikes Back?" he asks sympathetically.

"That's a brilliant title," says Eileen. "Sounds vaguely familiar, 
but you know, the memory charm. Cindy, btw, scored big with her 
Jobberknoll memory potion discovery. I think she's proved the 
existence of the memory potion bigtime, since it was mentioned in 
conjunction with Veritaserum. Reading that, I thought 
MATCHINGARMCHAIR's troubles were over, and that soon we would all be 
cuddled together in his cozy confines. But, rightaway, Elkins had two 
very good objections to MATCHINGARMCHAIR, and, imho, Cindy didn't 
answer them properly."

"Oh, I see," said G.L. "But I heard her say, ""People, people, people!
The Egg is Not A Problem for MATCHINGARMCHAIR."

"Yes, she did say that," says Eileen, "but it is. You see, Cindy came 
up with a very clever story by which the egg reminded Neville of a 
jobberknoll, digesting at death the screams of his parent's torture. 
But, if Neville really heard the original screams, and 
MATCHINGARMCHAIR insists he did, would he really liken the egg to a 
person being tortured, no matter how the jobberknowl jabbered?"

"Well," said G.L. "He might."

"In your galaxy, maybe," says Eileen, "But I couldn't help thinking 
that Elkins was right on the mark on this one. Let's roll the film 
back a litte."

The man with the mysterious initials complies.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"What?" Elkins stares at her. "What? You...Oh. Oh, right, yes, I 
see. So Neville's great and glorious Reverse Memory Charm doesn't 
even lead him to remember his parents being *tortured?* All he's got 
is this memory of some *bird* being strangled? Oh, yeah." She 
snorts. "That's *very* exciting, Cindy. Real Bangy."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

"Elkins has a point." the man concedes. "I have a bad feeling about 
this."

"Ah, but, the more she tightens her grip on her points, the more 
theories will slip through her fingers. I know what's going on with 
Egg now. The Egg, if you recall, was a disguise of a certain sound. 
When you put it under water, you found out what the sound really was. 
Listening to it above water, it was, well not muffled, but not clear 
either. One listened to it and tried to figure out what the 
underlying form was. It was not a sound that sat well on human ears. 
Seamus tried to rationalize it as being, beneath everything, a 
banshee's wailing, and Neville, well Neville, thinking on torture, 
felt that its underlying form was tortured screaming. The Egg, of 
course, sounded like nothing human. Harry even says as much."

"But what about the Dementor?"

"Well, Cindy has her answer. Harry's experiences were worse than 
Neville. But, I'm not convinced. In fact, I agree with Elkins. Let's 
roll the film."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

"ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR *MIND*?" she shrieks, seemingly 
oblivious to the fact that she has just slipped into one of her very 
least favorite aspects of JKR's chosen idiom. "WHAT ARE YOU 
*TALKING* ABOUT? ARE YOU *INSANE?* YOU THINK THAT A COUPLE OF 
ABRUPTLY-CUT OFF SCREAMS AND A RUSHING NOISE AND A FLASH OF GREEN 
LIGHT IS A WORSE MEMORY THAN--" 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Torture is worse than abrupt murder to witness, in some respects," 
says Eileen. "After all, Darth Vader murdered lots of people in 
quick "flashes of green light" situations, but he cracked when he saw 
Luke tortured. You have seen that movie, haven't you?"

"Yes," said the man. "And, I'd like to draw your attention to what a 
masterpiece it is. I don't know how many people have come to me and 
said, "I saw Star Wars, and the experience has caused me to re-
experience my life and join a Buddhist monastery."

"None?" ventures Eileen.

"Well, Steven said he was moved," said the man huffishly. "And, I 
think it's a very deep and trancedental movie."

"Be that as it may, there's a very simple reason why Harry reacted 
worse than Neville, and it fits perfectly within the logic of the 
Reverse Memory Charm or, as we must now call it, the Reverse Memory 
Potion theory. Dementors make one relive one's worst moments. Harry, 
having completely forgotten his parents' murder, does very badly 
against the Dementors. But, what if, as MATCHINGARMCHAIR claims, 
Neville is already reliving his parents' torture. If one regularly 
hears Cruciatus screams already, wouldn't have one learned to cope 
with them to some extent? Once Harry begins to cope more, he can face 
the dementors much better. Boggart-dementors have all the emotional 
and psychological effects of real dementors (as demonstrated in POA), 
yet Harry is able to deal with that Boggart-dementor in GoF quite 
handily. Neville does o.k. in the train, because he's an old hand at 
the reliving-your-worst-memories game."

"May I have a MATCHINGARMCHAIR, then?" asks the man, clearly 
impressed. 

Eileen is about to send Avery back to a raft for a MATCHINGARMCHAIR 
to give the strange visitor, when she hears a roar of laughter, and 
looks up to see Elkins, in wetsuit, a paddle in her hand.

""Pah!" spits Elkins. "Pah! That's not *Bang,*. That's *girl 
stuff!* It's a chick flick! It's an after-school special! It's a 
soap opera! It's a Kaffee Klatsch! It is just plain *Weak,* is what 
it is. It. Is. A. DUD!"

Eileen's knees begin to knock together. There was a time when she and 
Elkins had been lowly sycophants together. Many things had come in 
the way of that friendship, the Reverse Memory Charm, the question of 
whether Crouch Sr. was dead sexy, but she had never imagined that one 
day Elkins would become an avenging angel.

Her fears, though, are groundless. Elkins' face relaxes.

"I've never really been all that big a fan of Bang anyway."

Eileen nods. "So when are you joining us?"